CHANDIGARH: In a major cabinet reshuffle, the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP)-led Punjab government has allotted more power to Industries and Commerce and Investment Promotion and Power Minister Sanjeev Arora. Arora has been given the Local Government department, extending his influence across industrial policy, energy and urban governance.
According to sources, the Local Bodies department, which was with Dr Ravjot Singh will now be headed by Sanjeev Arora, and the NRI Affairs department will go to Dr Ravjot Singh.
The changes in the cabinet were reportedly discussed between Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann and AAP national convener Arvind Kejriwal during the latter’s ongoing visit to the state. The proposed changes were sent to Punjab Governor Gulab Chand Kataria earlier today, who gave his nod later in the day.
Arora had recently gone to Japan and South Korea with Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann to attract foreign investment in the state.
This move assumes importance in the backdrop of the upcoming municipal corporation elections in February for nine municipal corporations (Mohali, Hoshiarpur, Moga, Bathinda, Batala, Kapurthala, Abohar, Pathankot and the newly upgraded municipal corporation of Barnala) and 116 nagar councils.
Sources said that Arora getting the Local Government department is a move to woo urban Hindu voters. This is at a time when the BJP, which gets most of its traction from urban Hindu voters, is trying to make political inroads.
These elections are widely being viewed as a “political semifinal”, a litmus test for parties on their urban base ahead of the high-stakes 2027 state assembly elections.
In the last municipal corporation elections held last year, the ruling AAP won Patiala, Amritsar, Jalandhar, Ludhiana and Phagwara, though opposition parties had alleged large-scale rigging in the polls.
On July 3 last year, Arora was inducted into the Mann cabinet after Kuldeep Singh Dhaliwal was dropped. He was elected as an MLA in the June 19 Ludhiana West assembly bypoll after defeating Congress candidate Bharat Bhushan Ashu by a margin of 10,637 votes and was sworn in as a legislator on June 28. The bypoll was necessitated following the death of AAP MLA Gurpreet Bassi Gogi in January.
He was initially assigned the Industry and Commerce and NRI Affairs portfolios. In a later reshuffle on August 18, the Power Department was also given to him.
Earlier in 2022, Arora, a businessman-turned-politician, was elected as an AAP Member of Parliament to the Rajya Sabha from Punjab, and he resigned from the upper house on July 1 last year. A Ludhiana-based industrialist, he is also known for his social welfare work and runs the Krishna Pran Breast Cancer Charitable Trust.